Exposing the Event. a Curatorial Investigation of the Aesthetics of Novelty in the Portuguese Revolution
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Exposing the Event. A Curatorial Investigation of the Aesthetics of Novelty in the Portuguese Revolution by Carolina Rito A practice-based thesis submitted for the degree of Ph.D. in Curatorial/Knowlegde Department of Visual Cultures Goldsmiths College University of London Supervised by Irit Rogoff London, March, 2016 1 I hereby declare that the following work is my own. Carolina Rito London, March, 2016 2 ABSTRACT Exposing the Event dissertation sets up the curatorial as an aesthetic investigative practice able to read the representations and manifestations of the ‘new’—and what they efface—in the expanded field of cultural activity. Through a curatorial approach the ‘new’ is examined as a constellation of aesthetic manifestations and exposures, only able to signify under an apparatus that renders them visible, sayable and thinkable (Rancière, 2004). Considering a historical event as a cultural manifestation of the new, the Portuguese Revolution (1974-1976) serves as the framework of this investigation. The three chapters draw on visual and aural material—documentary, essay and militant cinema—of the Portuguese Revolution, made during the PREC (Ongoing Revolutionary Process) and in the present. Chapter One introduces the film Torre Bela (Harlan, 1977) set in Portugal during the Carnation Revolution, in order to problematise the mechanisms of ‘event’ production as an unexpected manifestation of a historical new. Chapter Two explores the notion of the ‘return of the secret gaze’ (Kuster, 2007) in order to disclose a multiplicity of layers of representation in the exhibitionary space of Torre Bela. Chapter Three addresses the ‘right to narrate’ unmoving histories through Grada Kilomba’s intervention in the film Conakry (César, 2013) and the haunted memories of Ventura in Horse Money (Costa, 2014). The proposed readings aim to address the ‘non-revolted’ affects of the post-revolutionary present. A series of transcriptions, images and performative texts are woven into the dissertation. These materials include an interview with Pedro Costa (2015), and an array of stills from Torre Bela (1977). Their insertion aims to animate the curatorial as an investigative practice capable of intersecting different registers of material and set them in dialogue. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 11 Overview 11 Theoretical Frames of Reference and Terminology 12 The Exhibition 13 Exposures 18 Revolution 19 The Curatorial 21 Aesthetics 29 Driving Questions 30 Methodology and Chapters Outline 32 Suspending the Event’s Disruption—the ‘Non-Event’ in Torre Bela 34 Wilson’s Dream of Becoming an Actor and the ‘Exhibitionary 35 Complex’ in Torre Bela Actualising Revolution—The Non-Revolted Affects and ‘Continuities’ 36 of The Portuguese Revolution I 40 CHAPTER ONE 41 Suspending the Event’s Disruption—the ‘Non-Event’ in Torre Bela 41 Introduction 41 Event: The Portuguese Carnation Revolution 47 ‘complexity and vibration of the ‘real’’ in Torre Bela 52 Staging the Occupation Scene and the Space Behind-the-Camera 57 On the Opening Up of the Evental Space—The Swarm of Events 62 The Cinematic Apparatus as Dispositif 64 ‘Representing Reality’ in the Documentary Film Genre 67 Prescribing the Event 74 The ‘Non-Event’ 79 4 Conclusion 83 VISUAL ESSAY ONE The Occupation Scene 86 II 107 CHAPTER TWO 109 Wilson’s Dream of Becoming an Actor and the ‘Exhibitionary 109 Complex’ in Torre Bela Introduction 109 I 112 The All-Encompassing View of Torre Bela 117 ‘The Return of the [Deployed] Real’ 121 II 125 III 130 Torre Bela and its ‘Exhibitionary Complex’ 131 Politics in the Space of Exhibition and Representation 136 Conclusion 150 VISUAL ESSAY TWO The Aerial View 155 III 163 CHAPTER THREE 165 Actualising Revolution—The Non-Revolting Affects And ‘Continuities’ 165 Of The Portuguese Revolution Introduction 165 Introduction [to my revolution] 166 Revolution: Freedom, Violence and Silence 173 The Absent-Presence at the Dinner Party with John Cage 181 ‘The Name Amílcar Cabral Was Never Revealed to Me in My History Books’ 186 5 Revolution and its ‘Continuities’ 194 The Suspension of the Grammar of Change in Ventura’s Phantasmatic 204 Memories Conclusion 214 VISUAL ESSAY THREE The Palm Trees 217 CONCLUSION 222 Overview 222 The Three ‘Modalities of Exposure’ for the Curatorial Practices 225 The ‘Non-Event’ 228 The ‘Sensing’ 230 The ‘Continuities’ 233 Contributions and Scope for Further Research and Development 234 APPENDICES 238 BES REVELEÇÃO, Marco Mendes, 2012 239 Interview with Pedro Costa Conducted by Laura Mulvey, September 2015 241 BIBLIOGRAPHY 257 6 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Fig. 1—Booklet Cooperativa Agricola Popular da Torre Bela, ‘Portico’ poem, p. 1 Fig. 2, 3, 4 and 5 – The occupation scene of the palace in Torre Bela (Harlan, 1977). Video stills: 89’10’’, 85’56’’, 85’20’’, 84’20’’. Clockwise direction starting on the left hand corner. Fig. 6—Kids jumping to the water for money in Vampires of Poverty (Ospina and Mayolo, 1977) Fig. 7—Jason performing in front of the camera in Portrait of Jason (Clarke, 1967). Video still: 41’44’’ Fig. 8—Gathering in the public square in Torre Bela (Harlan, 1977). Video still: 26’20’’ Fig. 9—Aerial shot of Torre Bela’s main gate. Torre Bela (Harlan, 1977). Video still. Fig. 10—Aerial shot of Torre Bela estate. Torre Bela (Harlan, 1977). Video still. Fig. 11 and 12—Juxtaposition of the aerial view showing the main gate in Torre Bela (Harlan, 1977) (on the left), and my visit to Torre Bela in 2015 (on the right). Fig. 13—Squatters waving from the ground to Harlan on the helicopter in Torre Bela (Harlan, 1977). Video still. Fig. 14 and 15—The crowd in a public meeting (on the left) where Wilson gets emotional during his speech in Torre Bela (Harlan, 1977). Video Stills. Fig. 16 and 17—Fragments of a letter sent by my father to his parents on 24 February 1970. Fig. 18—French Fixed-Term Working Permission (‘Carte Ordinaire de Travail a Validité Limitée’) of my father (Luís Nuno e Sousa de Oliveira Rito) 7 Fig. 19, 20, 21 and 22—The military and the people in the streets of Lisbon on 25 April 1974. Documentation Centre 25th April (Centro de Documentação 25 de Abril). Fig. 23—Grada Kilomba reading her text in front of Amilcar Cabral’s reels in Conakry (César, 2013). Video still. Fig. 24 and 25—Grada Kilomba reading her text in front of Amilcar Cabral’s reels in Conakry (César, 2013). Video stills. Fig. 26, 27, and 28—Video clip ‘Conquistador’, DaVinci, 1989. The band plays in front of the Monument to the Discoveries in Lisbon, where the colonial exhibition of the Portuguese World was held (on the left), and in a Caravela (the Portuguese sailing ship developed in the fifteenth century) (centre and right). Video stills. Fig. 29—Monument to the Discoveries (Padrão dos Descobrimentos) on the bank of Tagus River in Lisbon (Telmo and Almeida, 1940)—the 25 April Bridge, previously called António Oliveira Salazar, can be seen in the backdrop. Fig. 30—Público’s newspaper cover, Brasil Descoberto (Discovered Brasil), 5 March 2014. Fig. 31—Ventura and Vitalina in Horse Money (Costa, 2014). Video Still. Fig. 32 and 33—Ventura (on the left) and Ventura and Tito Furtado (on the right) in Horse Money (Costa, 2014). Video Stills. Fig. 34 and 35—Ventura and Vitalina (left), and Vitalina (right) in Horse Money (Costa, 2014). Video Stills. Fig. 36 and 37—Ventura and the ‘freedom fighter’ in the elevator in Horse Money (Costa, 2014). Video Stills. Fig. 38—Ventura in Horse Money (Costa, 2014). Video Still. 8 Visual Essay The Occupation Scene in Torre Bela (Harlan, 1977). Video stills: 80'-89' The Aerial View in Torre Bela (Harlan, 1977). Video Stills: 8''-2'24'' The Palm Trees Scene in Torre Bela (Harlan, 1977).Video stills: 2'26''-2'50'' 9 10 INTRODUCTION Overview Exposing the Event. A Curatorial Investigation of the Aesthetics of Novelty in the Portuguese Revolution researches the representations and manifestations of the ‘new’—and what they efface—in the expanded field of cultural activity. Considering that the new needs to be recognised as novelty in order to signify, this thesis investigates the aesthetic manifestations of the ‘new’ as a historical and situated construct. As for a cultural manifestation of the new, the Portuguese Revolution (1974-1976) serves as the conceptual and material framework of this investigation. The Portuguese Revolution provides the aural and visual material to grasp the ‘visible, sayable and thinkable’ of the historical event; and, most importantly, the contained aesthetic tensions of what is left invisible, unsayable and inaudible in the post-revolutionary present. The three chapters draw on documentary, essay and militant cinema related to the Portuguese Revolution, and directed during the PREC (Ongoing Revolutionary Process)1 and in the present. This dissertation explores the epistemic potentialities of the curatorial in the field of visual cultures. In Exposing the Event the curatorial is able to propose new epistemic tools capable of sensing barely recognisable gestures, unaccountable discourses and invisible presences blurred by the hegemonic logics and narratives of the ‘new’. The research actualises the notion of ‘revolution’ in the present, as a scripted phenomenon, dependent on the repetition of aesthetic manifestations and of a grammar of novelty. This verification undermines the revolution as the disruption of the historical time able to install a new and fairer order. Rather, the revolution is devised as a fragile suspension of the old order, under which instituted power structures claim universal emancipation and transformation. The curatorial, as an inter-disciplinary and aesthetic investigative practice, examines revolution in its exhibitionary components, i.e., event, discourse, 1 After the Carnation Revolution the Ongoing Revolutionary Process ran for almost two years. 11 exposures, and juxtapositions. Revolution’s components are articulated as exposures at the site of tensions between material and affects that do not depend on an intentional exhibiting gesture.